Nokia should adopt Android, advises analyst

Nokia should abandon the Windows Phone ship and make the change to Android before it is too late, suggests one analyst.

Pierre Ferragu, an analyst from Bernstein Research, has advised that Nokia should switch to Google’s Android mobile OS before they run out of finances to make the change.

At the end of last month, Nokia shares fell by 2.6 per cent prompting Ferragu to note the company’s balance sheet is “in a rather tight net cash position” and should be thinking about ways to make Nokia smartphones more successful.

“[Nokia] is facing two structural challenges: its exposure to the disappearing feature phone market and the lack of traction of Windows Phones”, said Ferragu.“Both could cost Nokia a lot of cash in the near term, in restructuring, marketing/distribution support, and operational losses, which means it could be too late to address the problem in a couple of years.”

Competition from the dominant Android and iOS smartphone platforms coupled with the slow adoption of the Windows Phone platform are causing Nokia to struggle.

“From that perspective, a decision concerning a new platform strategy appears urgent. Better to take the pill before one cannot afford to do so anymore. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Nokia adopting Android as its new low-end platform by the end of the year.”

Windows Phone is plagued by an app store that cannot compete with the offerings contained with the App Store and Google Play Stores.

If Nokia made the change to Android, it may not have to rely on its low-end Nokia Asha line or compete at the high-end level with more popular handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 5 or HTC One.

The Microsoft mobile OS currently only accounts for somewhere between 3 – 5 per cent of the smartphone market and will continue to cripple Nokia’s smartphones like the Nokia Lumia 925, Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 unless a change is made.